Steve Wynn Asks Supreme Court to Lower Defamation Threshold

Disgraced former casino mogul Steve Wynn has petitioned the US Supreme Court to reverse or modify a landmark decision that has guided libel law since 1964. The court’s decision in New York Times v. Sullivan established the “actual malice” standard in defamation cases brought by public figures.

According to that standard, public figures must prove that defendants made statements against them either with the knowledge that they were false, or with reckless disregard for their truth, in order to win defamation lawsuits.

Wynn has asked the highest court in the land to lower that threshold.

Wynn’s petition concerns a defamation lawsuit he brought in 2018 against the Associated Press (AP), which that February reported on a police statement given by a woman named Hulina Kuta, who alleged sexual misconduct against the former Wynn Resorts chairman and CEO.

At that time, Wynn faced several allegations of sexual misconduct toward female Wynn Resorts workers, which he continues to deny and for which he has never been prosecuted.

Kuta’s allegations turned out to be false, and in March 2020 a lower court determined she had defamed Wynn. However, the judge awarded the billionaire only $1 in damages. In September 2024, the Nevada Supreme Court rejected Wynns’s appeal of that decision.

Outrageous Claims

In his original court case, Wynn argued that the AP story was libelous because some of Kuta’s claims were so outrageous that reporters should have known they weren’t credible. He also accused the news agency of omitting details that would have cast doubt on the veracity of her account.

The article reported Kuta’s false claim that Wynn had raped her in the 1970s and that she gave birth to their daughter in a gas station restroom.

In an affidavit given to Wynn’s lawyers later that year, Kuta also claimed that she had been the model for Picasso’s Le Reve, owned by Wynn at the time, which was painted 10 years before she was born. She alleged Wynn had stolen Le Reve and other precious artworks from her.

Kuta also said she had been married to Wynn in the 1960s and that she bore him other children, but she couldn’t remember their names.

“Any decision to scale back or unwind the New York Times v. Sullivan decision would be a massive blow to press freedoms and the media’s ability to report on public figures,” stated Glenn Cook, executive editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which broke this story on Friday.